harry reid is also at that event. will he talk to president obama? white house officials right not being fairly tight-lipped on that matter. not telling us if there are any meetings scheduled at this point in time. they, again, call this a working vacation and say that staffers are working on this behind the scenes. melissa? >> hang on just a second. let me bring in nbc news political editor diminico montenero. what do you think about the majority leader flying all the way to hawaii? >> i think they realized they have three options, small deal, a big deal or go over the cliff, and right now the most likely scenario is a small deal. something that puts us past the fiscal cliff but then brings the fiscal issues into the new year which has a lot of potholes for the president. has a lot of things to get done on his legislative agenda, so worried about how going over the cliff might impact the economy immediately. >> who is more likely to take the blame if we do go over this cliff? >> that's a lot of what we're seeing. that's why you see john boehner talk